


Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff: Revelations from the Day the Music Died

by templeandarche



Category: Empire Records (1995)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeandarche/pseuds/templeandarche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This music is the glue of the world, Mark. It’s what holds it all together. Without this, life would be meaningless." Sometimes, things need some re-gluing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff: Revelations from the Day the Music Died

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flecksofpoppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/gifts).



> flecksofpoppy, hope you enjoy. Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Disclaimer: Empire Record's characters, quotes and universe belong to their respective creators and I do not own anything associated with the film.

Deb was surprised at how little had changed since she last worked at Empire. Faded posters of aging rock superstars still coated the wall space, the same handmade category signs dangled from the ceiling above rows and rows of dusty shelves jammed with cd’s. She noted that Joe had expanded the Vinyl section - probably because of the recent resurgence in LP popularity in hipster crowds. She’d blogged about it last year. 

Joe still used the same ancient registers that suffered from paper jams every fifth or so transaction and were so technologically outdated that training anyone under 35 to use them would actually make them dumber. The walls could have used a paint job the day she’d turned in her name badge and button maker over a decade ago. It felt like someone had trapped her teenage years inside a bubble, or a kitschy snow globe from some roadside attraction. 

She wandered the aisles, looking for Joe, stopping occasionally to flick forward a cd or straighten one of the dividers. Old habits died hard. She scanned the sales floor looking for any familiar face. The teenage girl on cash ringing through the last stragglers before close was new; more than likely a customer who had come in often and loved music so much Joe eventually offered her a job.

That was how Deb had been hired. She’d called Mark a fucking moron when she overheard him and Eddie on one of their endless debates over music. Mark had made some lame ass comment about Black Flag and she tore him a new one. Rollins was not a pussy, fuck you very much. And Gwar was dogshit.

Joe overheard the exchange and asked her if she wanted to earn some money part time. He told her later he liked her straight up attitude. He grew to appreciate her head for numbers, especially around tax season.

As Deb waited for Joe as the clock ticked closer to midnight and wondered if she’d made a mistake coming back. She wasn’t sure what she could do to help. This wasn’t Rex Manning Day. There would be no damning of the man, no last minute hail mary plan to magically fix all their problems. 

Empire Records, since 1959, was closing it’s doors for good.

~***~

Mark had never risen to great heights. He’d barely graduated high school. He spent most of his early twenties at the Empire or practicing with his band, Mar(c)K. Sometimes he and Warren (whose real name was Pete, but Mark never called him that - or anyone else for that matter, whether staff or customer) would skate a little at the local park or he and Lucas would go for a beer after their shifts ended.

Mark hadn’t bothered with college applications - he didn’t have the grades or the money, so why bother? Focusing on his band mattered to him. At first, he and the guys met when they could, working around multiple job and school schedules. They took a hiatus over the summer after Joe bought out Mitchell so Mark could go on tour with Gina and Berko. 

(Joe threatened to make Warren the new night manager since everyone else was abandoning him and AJ couldn’t close every night of the week).

He loved being crammed into Berko’s shitty van, heading to every local pub, small town outdoor rock festival and dive bar in the state. Mark loaded equipment, got beer, cleaned up after Gina when she over indulged - typically the same shit he did at home but here, there were babes.

They mainly paid him some cash here and there and Berko always made sure Mark had some extras for the after partying. After everything imploded with Gina and Berko, Mark came back that autumn to his old job, his band and a new habit. 

He maintained for a while, and no one noticed his overly frequent bathroom breaks. His bandmates thought he was just putting some extra stage manic into his performance. But after the second possession bust in a year, the Judge offered a mandate. Mark had to attend rehab or serve jail time. 

His parents had washed their hands of him, but Joe was there. He attended all of Mark’s court dates, drove him to the facility, checked him in and quietly took care of the bills. 

“It’ll be ok, Mark. I promise.” Joe had given him that crooked smile and Mark breathed a little deeper and felt like it _would_ be. “Your job, the guys, the band - it’ll all be here when you get clean.”

~***~

Even though Joe recognized that Lucas had been the catalyst for all the much needed change in his life, he never let him close the store again.

Ever.

This might have been an insult to others, but Lucas didn’t mind. He preferred being the indie genre guru on hand as well as the guy who trained all the newbies in the art of identifying (and, if necessary, capturing) all potential shoplifters. 

While Joe appreciated his adopted son’s particular skill set, he wanted Lucas to aim a little higher when planning for his future. Lucas settled on philosophy, even with Joe grumbling about what kind of career could be produced from that type of degree. Privately, Joe would confide in Jane how proud he was and he made sure all his regulars knew what Lucas was studying.

Lucas came back for his first Thanksgiving break full of ideas and thoughts (now he could successfully argue just where they came from) and talked endlessly with anyone who would listen. Eddie was a great person to corner in the break room. His sweet temperament and wake n’ bake mentality made for lots of wide eyed “wow, mans”. 

It wasn’t all happy moments. Something had broken within his found family of tattooed, gum chewing little freaks. Mark seemed twitchier than usual. Berko and Deb were done for good. AJ and Corey were holiday no shows. Gina had quit everything; the store, the band she had with Berko, her friendship with Deb. Though Lucas sensed that was a mutual break up - Deb refused to even talk with Gina when she stopped by. Lucas raised an eyebrow when neither woman traded a single barb in reference to hair (or lack of) or clothing necklines.

(Warren was the exception to all the drama. He’d greeted Lucas with a bear hug and shoved his new Assistant Night Manager name tag in his face with the same manic glee he’d possessed when holding a gun a few months ago.)

It seemed all the magic they’d gained that day had burnt out. 

It all just faded away.

~**~

Gina loved that night. The rush of performing, singing her guts out to the crowd below, back to back with Berko while Corey and the others watched, their smiling faces staring back up at her.

Not a single show after ever recaptured the initial high. No matter how she tried to get back there. 

Jane had made a few phone calls to some contacts in the industry she’d met during her brief stint as manager for Sexy Rexy. They cobbled together a highlight reel of their show from the media and managed to snag the interest of some local representation. 

Within a month they had gigs booked at every crap bar inside a 200 mile radius. At first, Gina reveled in the attention. Every day was a new city, a new show, a new pretty face to lose herself in. While she desperately missed Corey, she felt free of the burdens that came with their friendship. Corey needed Gina’s strength so much - years of mistreatment from a father who demanded nothing but perfection had worn her confidence away to the point where she wasn’t always able to see how beautiful and brilliant she really was.

That could be why they fought as much as they laughed or cried. They were total opposites who depended on the other half to fill the void within. Gina had chosen long ago not to let the anger she felt at her dick of a father for abandoning her and her mom to consume her spirit. Instead she tried to make everything fun; work, school, guys. Life.

Sometimes she took it too far.

Gina didn’t have an off switch; there wasn’t a line she wouldn’t cross or a voice in her head that would tell her when to stop. Especially when you added in large quantities of booze and blow - which became a nightly post gig ritual. The hangovers took longer to recover from, and everyone began to get a little squirrelly from the close contact and constant partying.

As the tour wound down they’d booked a show at an Irish pub with a bigger bar than stage space. But the beer was cold and the turnout was decent for a shit part of town on a Wednesday night.

Deb had cancelled on Berko again; she’d been putting in extra hours for Joe and taking some summer college prep classes. He was pissed that she hadn’t shown and he put it into his performance that night. He teased and flirted with Gina on stage and the crowd ate it up.

The next morning Gina awoke naked in a sketchy hotel room bed under a dirty blanket that any CSI tech would love to wave a black light over.

Berko lay beside her, snoring. Empty bottles of beer covered the night tables, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the condom wrapper on the floor. 

The brief solace fled when she realized that she would have to admit to Deb that she had fucked her boyfriend. Gina knew everything they’d gained that morning, dancing on the rooftop as the sun came up, was lost.

~***~

Joe and Deb gathered with a mixture of staff and regulars outside the Empire for one last performance. It had taken weeks of endless pleading before Joe had given in on the condition that Mark get someone else to sing lead vocals.

Mark had stuck to his word and Joe was pleasantly surprised to see Gina take the makeshift stage surrounded by the remaining members of Mar(c)k. Deb had refused to comment on the band’s choice of singer and hid behind her video camera as she recorded footage she planned to use for her online blog. Whatever the hell that was.

Joe had told Deb to leave the work behind and just enjoy the evening but she had other ideas. “I've been talking about this place on my vlog for months, Joe.” She told him in the same scratchy, no bullshit tone he remembered from 15 years ago. 

Even with hair, Deb was still fierce. She’d gotten rid of the nose ring and traded in her baggy jeans, plaid, and combat boots for skinny black pants and a sheer black blouse. Joe was glad to see she’d kept her tattoos and wore them proudly against the backdrop of her designer clothes.

Joe knew that Deb had used her online popularity and Youtube channel to rally her followers and help keep his shop running. Website orders poured in and groups of kids from all over made road trips to purchase at one of the last independently owned music stores left in the country.

It didn't matter though. No one bought records anymore. Or cds. Even those damn iTunes cards that Warren had insisted Empire Records start carrying hadn’t made any extra profit.

Joe knew it was time to just let go. 

It had been a good run. He had Jane and Lucas. He still had most of his hair.

Joe tried to enjoy the party around him. He was surrounded by current and former employees, some of whom he hadn’t seen for years. Customers were everywhere - many he counted as friends. A few he regarded as assholes.

But they had come and that mattered and he was touched by the way the crowd seemed to have doubled in an hour. The band wasn’t anything special; these guys hadn’t played in years and it showed. Gina was laughing more than singing, but the audience didn’t care. They roared in delight when she stripped down to her Music Town apron, Warren’s screams being the loudest.

He wanted to brood with a glass of whiskey and his drum kit. But he had all the tomorrows in the world to do that. There was only one night to celebrate the end of an era.

Gina bowed and the band took a break. Deb finally shut her camera off and tucked it away in her shoulder bag. “AJ and Corey will be here tomorrow?” she asked. “I’m hoping to interview everyone I can for my next episode.”

“Even Gina?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Joe, _yes_. Even Gina.” 

“She and Berko messing around happened a lifetime ago.” 

Joe hoped she meant that. Everyone was coming for dinner at his house the next day and he was too damn old to be dealing with any residual feelings of betrayal.

Before he could mention the fight that had broken out the last time the two women had engaged in actual conversations, Deb changed the subject. “I’ve already talked to Jane and found some footage of Warren being taken away by the police on Rex Manning Day,” she tallied up each point on her fingers keeping a mental count of everyone she needed to talk with, “and now with Mark and Gina’s massacre of that Cranberries song, I’m good with live footage for the night.”

“I just need to talk to you and Lucas.” Deb turned away and scanned the crowd. “Where _is_ Lucas?”

Joe shrugged. “Lucas figured that if I would let Mark’s band play, it was only fair he got a second chance.”

Deb’s eyes widened in understanding. “Joe, you did NOT let him close the store. Did you?”

~***~

Lucas tapped the drumstick off the lip of the open bottle of Budweiser. The deposit form was filled out and the cash was neatly stacked, divided into denominations, ready to go into the bag. He’d promised Joe on his life that there would be no fucking around this time.

He understood that this time he wasn’t able to save the store. Better, he knew that he didn’t _need _to. Joe wasn’t stuck in a rut working for an asshole, dreaming of a better life.__

__Joe had found his place. And so had he._ _

__Nothing was perfect. Nothing could be _perfect_. Life was full of inconveniences and small annoyances and disappointments. _ _

__But if you could figure out how to navigate through the crap, you’d end up ok in the end._ _

__Lucas finished his beer in one long swallow, sealed the deposit and locked it in the safe. He could hear Gina announcing the first song in their next set and the crowd screaming their approval. He pulled on his leather coat, an old hand me down from Joe, and turned the office lights off and locked the door behind him._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Title shamelessly ripped from a Sarah McLachlan album and the song 'American Pie' by Don Mclean.
> 
> Thanks to my lovely betas, the usual suspects of YT. I adore you.


End file.
